When I purchased my Voodoo4 4500 fairly recently I was fully aware that is was not a good video card choice in any regards at the current time. Why then you may would I possibly decide to buy it? The answer is simply that I was going to use it for an older system with no AGP slot. The market for PCI video cards is growing smaller and smaller, and this was the best card I could find (albeit without very much research at all) which came in a PCI version.

At the price of $130.00 I could have bought a good Geforce2 MX, or for a little extra a cheap Geforce2 GTS. Both of these cards would blow the Voodoo4 4500 away in performance. Ironically I ended up having the replace the motherboard (to one with an AGP slot) anyway so there was no need for me to buy the Voodoo4 at all.

Even if you are an avid 3dfx fan who insists on buying a Voodoo card, I would not recommend getting the Voodoo4. It is simply not enough of an improvement over the Voodoo3 to justify the price difference between them. I do not recommend buying a Voodoo3 either though, I would strongly urge you to spend about 40 dollars more and go with the Voodoo5. The Voodoo4 uses the same graphics chipset as the Voodoo5, but the Voodoo5 has 2 processors, and 64MB of RAM while the Voodoo4 has only 32MB. Many people have said that the Voodoo5 is essentially just 2 Voodoo4's, and 3dfx has taken a lot of flak for just doubling their old product instead of coming up with new technology. My take on this is that for 40 dollars more, 2 Voodoo4's are better than 1!

With NVIDIA recently buying all intellectual property rights from 3dfx it is uncertain whether the Voodoo series of cards will remain supported. You will probably not get any future driver updates. If your game doesn't work with the card in the future there will likely be nothing you can do about it. On another note, the Voodoo4 and Voodoo5 cards are not compatible with the Intel i850 chipset which is used by the Pentium4 motherboards. So if you have a Pentium4 you can forget this graphics card entirely.

I do not think this is an awful video card, I just think that you can get much better value everywhere you look. For a little more you can get a Voodoo5 or a Geforce2 GTS, and for a little less you can get a Geforce2 MX. All of these are better value, and all probably better choices for a video card. It might be an option if you have an older motherboard which doesn't have an AGP slot. But I would still recommend researching PCI video cards before you jump into purchasing a Voodoo4.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 100-200